Young NTodd toiled through countless hours on many a long night and weekend, mucking with tons of super expensive hardware, plumbing the depths of protocol operation, device configs, troubleshooting, and whatnot1. It taught me so damned much that I still carry with me. Perhaps fewer details about defunct technology reside in my dusty memory, but plenty of hard-learned lessons that were reinforced over three decades inform what I do today.
Sadly, while I was in the midst of some tinkering, refining, and testing on Sunday morning, I got a notification that my old colleague, mentor, and boss from those heady days had died earlier this month. It feels a rather fitting way to find out.
Craig was an all around great guy; also great to work with, and for. Couldn't ask for a better guide while I was still cutting my teeth. A lot of good memories.
My second ever delivery was when we team-taught the pilot of our first TCP/IP & Internet workshop2 in Atlanta for BellSouth, which was terrifying and exhilarating, and ultimately gave me a lot of confidence. I also think often about mountain biking with him and the rest of our "mud for lunch" gang, riding technical trails in the woods not far from the office, occasionally returning covered with a bit more blood than mud.
Oh, and I'll never forget another time in Hotlanta (JFC, we were down there so damned much3) when he and I missed our flight home. It was actually a shameful travel fail on our part that might have involved getting overly wrapped up in our beers and talking geek shit. But that extended stay ended up being super fun.
Sadly, while I was in the midst of some tinkering, refining, and testing on Sunday morning, I got a notification that my old colleague, mentor, and boss from those heady days had died earlier this month. It feels a rather fitting way to find out.
Craig was an all around great guy; also great to work with, and for. Couldn't ask for a better guide while I was still cutting my teeth. A lot of good memories.
My second ever delivery was when we team-taught the pilot of our first TCP/IP & Internet workshop2 in Atlanta for BellSouth, which was terrifying and exhilarating, and ultimately gave me a lot of confidence. I also think often about mountain biking with him and the rest of our "mud for lunch" gang, riding technical trails in the woods not far from the office, occasionally returning covered with a bit more blood than mud.
Oh, and I'll never forget another time in Hotlanta (JFC, we were down there so damned much3) when he and I missed our flight home. It was actually a shameful travel fail on our part that might have involved getting overly wrapped up in our beers and talking geek shit. But that extended stay ended up being super fun.
Time is a flat circle. I hold Craig and his family in the Light.
1 - In 2001, our founder, the late, great David Byrne Hill, bestowed upon your humble blogger the annual Chairman's Quality Award for my efforts developing and delivering our workshops. My name was etched onto the plaque with past honorees to be displayed in the reception area for all eternity. I also received a Waterford Apprentice Bowl (symbol of Quality) and a tidy little check, which I promptly blew on a quality pair of Klipsch speakers. Alas, I have neither of those things any more.
2 - Before e-commerce! Before Voice over IP! Before IPv6! Before I convinced Dave Hill of the Internet's value, let alone had defeated him in battle!
3 - We had a permanent, dedicated lab down there, with all our core hardware (same as what we had in VT and in big packaged sets that we shipped to customer locations via Rock-it Cargo). Often we augmented it with some specialized equipment for whatever technology we were covering. Like the time I got into the lab over the weekend to set up, and noticed the shipping crates looked different than what I'd expected. Sure enough, opening them up, instead of VPN switches and whatnot, I found musical instruments belonging (I was told by one of the burly dudes tasked to swapping the shit just before my class started) to the opening act for Elton John.
2 - Before e-commerce! Before Voice over IP! Before IPv6! Before I convinced Dave Hill of the Internet's value, let alone had defeated him in battle!
3 - We had a permanent, dedicated lab down there, with all our core hardware (same as what we had in VT and in big packaged sets that we shipped to customer locations via Rock-it Cargo). Often we augmented it with some specialized equipment for whatever technology we were covering. Like the time I got into the lab over the weekend to set up, and noticed the shipping crates looked different than what I'd expected. Sure enough, opening them up, instead of VPN switches and whatnot, I found musical instruments belonging (I was told by one of the burly dudes tasked to swapping the shit just before my class started) to the opening act for Elton John.
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